Fetish

Rock the House

The Wireless Music Center isn't the first device to stream music from room to room. But it's the only one with a retro-chic '80s-futurism vibe. Philips' slick console replaces the usual woofers and tweeters with a flat-panel speaker membrane – and crams in a CD player and a 40-gig hard drive. This command center serves tunes wirelessly over 802.11g to up to five similarly flat satellites and can even pull tracks from a PC on your home network. Setup is simple, so you'll be blasting Devo reissues throughout the entire house in no time.
Wireless Music Center (WACS700): $999 for main console and one satellite receiver, $299 per additional receiver, www.philips.com

Lego My Ride

Get a fast and furious mod rod without ever picking up a socket wrench. Under the Menace's flip-up hood is a working rack-and-pinion steering system, and in the trunk are mock NO2 bottles. For nighttime thrills, the plastic blue headlights glow in the dark. You'll have to generate your own vroom vroom effects, but it's much cooler than the life-size hoopty in your garage.
Nitro Menace: $50, www.lego.com

Constant Reminder

Did you forget to lock the front door? Turn the lights off? Embrace your crippling OCD with the Home Heartbeat house-sitting system. Paranoid homeowners can use the Home Key (shown) to triple-check lights, doors, windows, and water systems. Sensors communicate by ZigBee, a low-power, close-range wireless network. The keychain monitors the situation when you're within 90 feet of the house, then takes a snapshot as you drive away. If anything changes, the base station sends an SMS or email alert to your phone or inbox.
Home Heartbeat: $150, www.homeheartbeat.com

Sharper Than RAZR?

Nokia finally answers the call for a new luxury phone with the 8801. The LCD is protected by a plate of scratch-resistant glass (the kind commonly found on high-end watches), and the stainless steel body slides open to reveal an injection-molded keypad and an SVGA cam. It's fun to fondle. But only time will tell whether it can wrest the trendy Motorola RAZR from the palms of the rich and stylish.
8801: about $600, www.nokia.com

Peek-a-Bot

Try not to think of it as the ultimate up-skirt cam. Steer this 4-inch-tall Bluetooth-controlled bot up to 164 feet with a cell phone or a PC. Its swiveling lens sends back lo-res streaming video at 15 frames per second and grabs 640 x 480 stills on command. Four LEDs act as headlights should you venture into dark corners to, let's say, document your roommate's dust bunnies. Please drive responsibly.
Motion Cam ROB-1: $TBD, www.sonyericsson.com

Surf's Upgrade

The stuff most surfboards are made of – foam, fiberglass, and polyester – is disco-era tech. It's time to update your gear! Hydro Epic boards consist of an aircraft-aluminum honeycomb shell wrapped in carbon fiber and Kevlar. This 6-foot 2-inch stick, crafted by famed shaper Dick Brewer, weighs just 6 pounds and is stronger, stiffer, more buoyant, and less ding-prone than the competition. It's easier to paddle into waves and quickly change direction atop them, too. Polyester's for threads, not shreds.
Brewer 6'2" Pro-1 Short: $850, www.hydroepic.com